What is Visual Micro?

Visual Micro is an so called extension for Microsoft Visual Studio 2008-2015
and for Atmel Studio 6.1-6.2 that allows any Arduino project to be
developed, compiled, and then uploaded to any Arduino board, while
taking benefit of the powerful features of Visual Studio and Atmel Studio.

Visual Micro is fully compatible with the Arduino development
environment and uses the same libraries, source code, and development tools.
The difference lies in Visual Micro'suser interface which
provides an advanced and professional development environment, and allows
for more advanced development than the existing Arduino IDE.

What does the term "IDE" mean?

In this documentation, you will often find the term "IDE".
This is an industry standard term meaning
Integrated Development
Environment, which is a
software application that incorporates a source code editor, build tools
such as a compiler and a debugging system. The IDE is used to write, edit,
build, and test your software. Whilst Arduino's IDE provides a basic starter
level IDE, Visual Micro in conjunction with Microsoft Visual Studio
or Atmel Studio provides an enhanced and more functional IDE.